


Unaligned Star

by CloudDreamer



Series: Theater of Tragicomedy [7]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubbles, Excessive Descriptions of Backgrounds, POV Second Person, Post-Retcon, Wait I wrote jade fic??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 14:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20391004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: Jade Harley dreams the way she lives in these three years.





	Unaligned Star

The beach is off white— ever so slightly brown. What passes as sand is larger here, clumpier. The water is murkier, and when you run your fingers through it, you can’t see your hand. When the waves crash on top of each other, what should be white turns violet.

These waves are more violent and more erratic than the ones you are used to. You perhaps could’ve expected this— there are two moons in the sky—but it’s strange to see. 

There are sea shells that wash up on the white beach, but they wouldn’t fit any fish you know. It is hard to grasp ahold of any of them without cutting yourself, bright red running down your fingers. The touch of the water stings even sharper than the salty ocean you used to swim in every now and then.

This is a dream, but the pain is real. 

There are branches at your feet. They are blue and twist into strange patterns, while their leaves are vibrant shades of pink. Another memory pushing in. Not yours. Neither of these are yours.

The sky is dark red, and it is shattered. Rainbow light pours in through cracks, fracturing and reflecting in a hundred different waves. Reality is made of glass.

You step into the sea, one foot at a time, after carefully pulling off your red slippers and socks, placing the pair next to each other on the sand-that-isn’t-sand. They’re a perfect pair.

This air is cold, with winds that try to knock you over and drag you beneath the bubbling surface. You step backwards, obliging the push of the tide, and you step backwards again, searching for balance in the turbulent oceans. This is not your memory, and you do not belong in this sea.

The not-sand beneath you sticks in between your toes, and you breathe in the air that is so sharp, it seems to cut your lungs. You stare at the sky with its dark clouds and its moons. One is as emerald as the lightning that always crackles beneath your skin now. The other is a vibrant pink. Is one smaller or are they simply different distances? You wonder as you reach your hands up towards the sky, scores of knotted bracelets slipping down your skin.

Your feet are callused from days spent running wild. Feral. You look back towards the shore and see your home, with those same still shoes perfectly positioned on the shore. The waves are at your knees, rubbing up against the soft midnight dress you wear, and they’re yours.

Your fingernails are clean now. There’s no earth under them. You do not feel the warmth of your hands in soil, carefully digging. If you wish to make something, you can simply punch a card and it will be yours. You have enough grist that you don’t need to worry about things like gardening.

The air is warm, and it hugs you like it is welcoming a long lost friend. You feel sweat drip down your cheek, and you breathe the scent of home, with its salt and its dirt and its ever-changing colors. It fills your lungs for the first time in so, so long. One day, you will breathe this again, you know, but it will be sugary sweet and it will never be enough. And this isn’t right, either. This isn’t home. These gods of the furthest ring could not possibly be that kind. It is merely a pale reflection, strong to those born on this side but untouchable by you.

No, this is not your home, you understand as you look again. There is a boy in a pumpkin patch. He could almost be mistaken for your brother, you think. Another brother, you correct. This is not John, with his breathless excitement at the wonders of the world. This is not John, because he is at home here, in the wilds. A metal man stands next to you, perfectly quiet. He does not see you, because you are not here. You are a ghost who has not yet died— relevant only in consequence to other people’s choices. His gears turn, but they do not make noise when they rub against each other. You reach to touch him, but the contact makes the echo fade away, dissolving into smoke in the wind that is easily blown away. 

It is blown away from a fire. The boy is still here, but he is small and sobbing. The body on the pyre is you, and you step back, further into the sea. It does not scare you, and yet, you hesitate to face it head on. She was old, her hair white before it was engulfed in the blaze, and she was happy, you know, in her own way. 

But you are not ready to know her. You wonder if you ever will. You wonder if you even want to. 

(The thing that you will not say is that you are not afraid to know her because she is you and she is dead, it is that you are afraid to know her because she is you and she was living.) 

You flee into the sea, but instead of drowning beneath the pressure of the depths, you find yourself tumbling through space. It is cold and empty.

You are the in between, and you are the everything. You don’t want to be either.

The stars glow, lines drawn artificially by humans who tried to inflict order on a world that was bigger than they could have ever imagined. They dreamed of a monster that stole fire from the gods, never knowing the true thief that had given them life was nothing more and nothing less than a girl. They wrote their stories of sea monsters and maidens, never knowing those fair maidens had been the beasts. They told your story a thousand-fold, you think you understand. 

You are a star, and you will burn so that those you love will not have to suffer in the cold.


End file.
